him not in Heaven nor in Hell not in the utmost parts of the Sea nor in the darkest night therefore verse 7. Whither shall I flee from thy presence Which being proposed by way of question implies the stronger Negation Therefore if we will make sense of those places we must understand the Psal as reaching after a more than ordinary presence which is the presence of God in places of publick worship which all sincere worshipers do enjoy By which kind of speeches he seems so to value the presence of God in his publick worship that he looks upon all things without this to be worth nothing And certainly where there is a spiritual life wrought in us it will discover it self by reaching after the utmost participations of divine things And the Gospel however a furtherer of private devotions yet doth in an especial manner command and incourage a publick Service as by the example of the Apostles which as a tacite precept requires the like of us To which end we find sometimes the place of their assembling recorded Act. 1.13 14. In an upper room they continued with one accord in prayer and supplication And otherwiles the time is mentioned Joh. 20.26 After eight days the disciples again were within which number includes two Sundays according to a computation then in use which was to take in the day from which they began their account thereby putting two Sundays into one week And when Christians began to grow cool and negligent in the publick presenting their Bodies the Author to the Heb. 10.25 both reproves this growing evil and charges others to avoid it not forsaking the assembling your selves together as the manner of some is And no wonder the Scripture is so round in this matter since the neglect of publick most certainly draws after it the neglect of all private duties therefore those that excuse their not frequenting publick Ordinances by a pretence of serving God at home are like those that will have every day a Sabbath till at last they keep none at all And good reason private devotions should give way to publick services because these are the most ordinary and beaten road to Heaven and a more usual conveyance of Grace than other Performances For Faith is said to come by hearing and this hearing such as is from Preaching How shall they hear without a Preacher Rom. Christ appeared to the first Christians when assembled together Joh. 20.26 The Holy Ghost descended upon them when met together with one accord in one place Act. 2. And our Saviour promises Matth. 18.20 that when two or three are met together in his name he will be in the midst of them Which must be understood in a more peculiar and especial manner than by his essential presence in regard of which he is at all times present with all his Creatures And no wonder this hath the greater blessing since we do in this more than any other way make a visible profession and thereby give more praise and glory to God than in private and unseen services Therefore as God hath so entwisted his Honour and our happiness together that it is impossible to separate them for the same Acts do both so those acts that most advance his Glory usually tend most to the advantage of him that doth them Whence the Apostle seeing these two ends best attainable by a publick worship doth press us to present our bodies a living sacrifice and therefore to present them in that way that Sacrifices were offered which was in the most solemn and publick manner 4. The Text fixes this Worship on the Body That ye present your Bodies Which by a Synechdoche partis pro toto is put for the whole man That ye present your selves Where observe That the Body is engaged in this work Though indeed there is no Text that doth expresly exclude it yet because there is one that doth not in terminis include the Body as John 4.23 The true worshipers shall worship in spirit and in truth Therefore some will have the Soul alone concerned and not the Body at all in Divine Worship But as out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaks so bodily worship is in and flows from that of the spirit nothing being more natural than outwardly to express our inward sentiments and especially the awfulness we have of the Deity In most ordinary cases it is judged Hypocrisie to do otherwise and in this it cannot be without some violence offered to our selves for it is certainly contrary to the reasons and experience of all observing men that when we come to the place and Offices of a publick Worship men should have any due and suitable thoughts of the presence they come before and not express the same in outward gestures and behaviour I am sure none will believe that man hath any internal or mental reverence for his Superiours who when in their presence doth not outwardly express the same For we measure the thoughts by the actions and guess at the Soul by the Body Much more must we think thus in the case before us for God being the greatest and most excellent of all beings if we have worthy thoughts of him the mind is so struck and the soul receives such deep impressions that we much more necessarily in outward gestures discover the awful and reverend thoughts we have of the Deity than we do our respects to Superiors who being but fellow-creatures differ from us not in infinite as God doth but in some few and little distances and doubtless our Saviour requiring a spiritual worship doth as much intend that of the Body too as those Scriptures mean so many persons that speak only of so many souls Gen. 12.5 And Abraham took Sarai his wife c. and all the Souls they had gotten c. And it seems very observable that when men once exclude the reverence of the Body they quickly lose that of the Soul too as appears from such mens expressions who make their prayers familiar discourses with God Almighty which must proceed from want of due thoughts of God whereupon they make themselves too much like him or him too much like themselves Neither is it any wonder that our Saviour expresly requires a spiritual worship rather than a bodily Because 1. This is the greater and carries the other along with it whereas that is the less and may be because it sometimes is without this 2. Christ was here nulling the Mosaick Dispensation which was called a Carnal Command Heb. 7.16 the reason of which we find Ch. 9 10. because it stood in meats and drinks and divers washings and carnal ordinances imposed upon them Therefore being now to bring in a worship which rested not so much in bodily Exercises it was most proper and subservient to this present design to call it a spiritual worship not only because the denomination is now taken from the major part but also that men might hereby be prepared by taking off their minds
A SERMON AT THE Warwick-shire MEETING November 25 1679. AT S. Mary-le-Bow in Cheapside London By William Basset Rector of Brinklow in Warwickshire LONDON Printed for T. Basset at the George near S. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street 1679. TO THE Right Worshipful Sir ROBERT VINER Baronet and Alderman of the City of London CErtainly this Meeting justly claims a place among the considerable Benefits our Country doth enjoy not only in regard of the correspondence the several members of it that are removed to this City hold one with another but especially that by this means so many Plants are yearly removed from the barren parts of it to this richer Soil where they are pruned and dressed and having depth and fatness of earth grow into Trees that yield Profit and Beauty to the whole Nor is the advantage small to those whose Lot doth not fall in this pleasant place since the Country is yearly eased of so many who by reason of ill Circumstances would be rather a Burden than advantage to their Neighbours especially those places that have more Hands than Work where Men stand idle perhaps for no other reason but because none have hired them And I have sometimes known a Town at great expence both of time and Mony to keep out it may be some single person from being an Inhabitant because they had more than they could employ before And where the younger do increase the more ancient while yet serviceable being left without employ are necessarily supported by the Contributions of the place And in Corporations and Market-towns where some might have crept into little Trades this is already divided into so many hands that some few in a Town excepted they have little else to do but to open and shut the Windows of their Shops and when they have shut are scarce able to set and keep them open Whence we may take some measures of the Benefit the Country doth receive from this Company For should they lay down so good a Work our poor and therefore our payments would increase more would die indebted to the world leave Charge behind them and each way oppress the living and the business of all private and publick Sessions would yearly increase Therefore certainly all the Inhabitants of that place are bound in point of policy and reason if not of duty too according to their several Capacities to encourage and maintain so good a Work Especially the Gentry whose Abilities Divertisements or other Concerns calling them so oft to Town give them so fair an opportunity especially considering these Benefits reach even the high places themselves are yet in For Landlords thrive best where Tenants prosper And Rents usually fall where the poor and therefore payments do increase I must therefore impute it to the non-consideration of these things and perhaps in some to the want of Generous and Publick Spirits or at least to the not kindling those Sparks of Virtue into a frame of Love and Bounty which however Titles go are essential to a Gentleman that we are in this Affair so far left by those whose presence would be an Honour to the Company a Glory to the place of their Nativity and would give new life and vigour to the business of this Assembly Great Bodies move the lesser And good Leaders in that Contribution which is not as some suppose for the Stewards Pockets but towards the Binding Children out to Trades by their very example gain more from others than the Sums themselves do give can amount to And the more is thus collected the more the Stewards are incouraged to a free and large addition that for their own Fame and the Childrens Good they may place them to the better Trades which often proves as great a kindness as the setting them out to any for sometimes ingenuity is forced to creep when it might run high if placed in a better Circumstance And since the want of publick Spirits prove a decay to a whole Society to particular Companies and smaller Bodies we are the more obliged where we sind them to pay them due respects and give a just applause And since such a spirit appears so eminently in your self not only from your publick Works and Monuments in the City and our County Town of Warwick in which your name shall live to future ages He loves our nation and hath built a synagogue c. But also from the Incouragement you are pleased to give this charitable Work in having formerly vouchsafed to be Steward of this Company and in the Yearly Honour you do it by your presence not suffering any business no not the Burden as well as Honour you sustain'd when Lord Major of this City to deliver you from it I thought my self in duty bound by this Dedication to let you know the Honour and Respects our Country ows you as well as him who is Your Worships Humble Orator And Servant W. Basset TO Mr. Richard Chandler Job Vere Thomas Grassingham Henry Marshal John Skipwith William Brown George Shettleworth Richard Elborow Stewards WEll your Charge and Trouble now is mostly over but your Honour and Rewards for having been Benefactors to your Country still remain and I hope may out-live the Funerals of Time For indeed you are able to give so good an Account of your Stewardship that as many as look upon this Meeting of our Country-men as an Ensample to all the other Counties of England so you are a fair Copy for all the following Stewards of the same Company to write after And such have been your repeated kindnesses to me that I am bound to subscribe my self Your Obliged Country-man And Servant W. Basset A SERMON PREACHED AT THE Warwick-shire MEETING November 25 1679. ROM 12.1 I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service IN the Foregoing Chapters the Apostle hath discoursed some things which the largeness of our Subject will not suffer us to look into and from which the Text is a conclusion and for that reason is ushered in with the Illative Therefore I beseech you therefore In the words themselves we shall observe 1. A kind and familiar compellation Brethren 2. An earnest Supplication I beseech you 3. A farther inforcement of the matter in hand By the mercies of God I beseech you brethren by the mercies of God 4. The subject matter of this Discourse That ye present your bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable to God And 5. The equity and meetness of the thing Which is your reasonable service I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable to God which is your reasonable service I begin with the 1. Brethren We once all lay in that common matter which Moses calls the void and formless earth and others express by their materia prima some by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and others by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
from those carnal Ordinances to close with the proposals of a more spiritual Law But yet this Text cannot in reason be supposed to exclude the body because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Worshipers and shall worship do come signifies to kiss which implies an act of the Body and the Septuagint uses the same word to express a worship which was for the most part bodily viz. that of Baal 1 King 19.18 I have left me seven thousand in Israel all the knees which have not bowed to Baal and every mouth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that hath not kissed that is that hath not worshiped him and why the same word should in one place signifie a worship which is mostly bodily and in the other place viz. this of S. John should signifie a worship purely spiritual or exclusive of the Body I do not yet understand But it is a common rule in expounding Scripture that that cannot be the meaning of one Text which contradicts another and such is this sense which excludes the Body from acts of worship For in Exod. 20.5 Bowing down the Body being the highest expression of our inward reverence and therefore meetest for the worship of the great God is made an act of Divine Worship and for that very reason is forbid to be paid to the creatures as representations of the Deity Therefore if we must not bow down to the true God then we may bow down to Graven Images and contrariwise if we must not bow down to Graven Images then we must bow down to the true God and the reason is because it is forbid to be paid to the one upon this very account that it is reserved as proper and peculiar to the other and therefore so long as it is forbid to be given to Images so long it remains a debt to God which is for ever this Command being moral and consequently perpetually obliging It must needs therefore be that those men who bow down to neither as they are no Idolaters so they are no Worshipers and because they would not be Redundants will therefore be Defectives in their Religion From this precept have flowed those Exhortations Psal 95.6 O come let us worship and fall down and kneel before the Lord our maker Which are no parts of the Ceremonial Law but streams from this Fountain And since God made redeemed and promised rewards to the Body as well as the Soul it is all the reason in the world he should be worshiped by both from which Topicks that great Apostle argues 1 Cor. 6.20 Ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your body and your spirit which are Gods Whence we proceed to the fifth part of the Text viz. the meetness and equity of the thing It is your reasonable service That ye present your bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable to God Which is your reasonable service That is a Service agreeable to the reasons of men and dictates of nature abstracting from her Corruptions And indeed it must needs be so because it is a part of the natural Law For as Cicero saith consensio omnium gentium lex naturae putanda est The consent of all Nations in any one thing must be reputed the law of nature And truly as what nature teaches must needs be known and spread as far as humane nature it self so when we find all Nations agreeing in any one thing we cannot in reason assign any other teacher of that thing but the same nature Now Jew and Gentile Greek and Barbarian did all agree in this according to their several Modes and Capacities that it is a most meet and reasonable thing that we should present our bodies a living sacrifice to God Whence they had their Temples their Priests and Sacreds And in their moral Discourses they taught the necessity and way of rooting out Vice and acquiring Virtue in order to their making themselves holy and acceptable to God Neither can any think me too daring in this part of my Discourse that considers that great and learned men hold there is nothing purely positive in the Gospel but the two Sacraments and some think these in part founded on nature and reason too because they find some shadows and footsteps of them in Gentile Writings as Purification by Water and this before Homer or at least by him mentioned and their making Leagues inter vinum epulas with eating and drinking Though indeed some men are so fansiful that if they perceive any the least likeness between the Notions and Customs of the Jews and Gentiles as especially T. G. in his Court of the Gentiles it must needs pass as a clear Demonstration that therefore the Gentiles had these things mediately or immediately from the Jews By which means I dare undertake to make out to the reasons of men that they may as well make the History of one Nation but an imitation and corruption of the History of another Whereas both Jew and Gentile having the same natural light might be directed thereby to many the same notions and like customs I would ask whether the Gentile by the natural light of the understanding might not hit upon some truth Else to what purpose doth that light serve O what benefit is it to that part of Mankind that had no further Directions Then whether the Jews having the same light together with the farther addition of Revelation might not hit upon the same truths whether it necessarily follows that the Gentiles had this from the Jews Again since each Light directs mankind to the Belief and Worship of the Deity and because there can be no publick Worship without the appointment of persons time and place to that end whence they must descend to many particular Constitutions and Customs as to these grand requisites of Worship whether we can in reason suppose that it is not likely there will be some similitudes as to Persons Habits Sacreds or one thing or other between the worship of each although these two Bodies of Men might never hear or know any thing one of another Whence let reason judge what an irrefragable argument likeness of Notions or Customs is to prove them all of Jewish Original Though indeed moderate and rational Discourses on this Subject may much advance the Glory of Sacred Writings yet to press them so far as some have done robs the greater part of Mankind of their very Reasons detrudes them into lower Species and therefore makes them like the Beasts that perish leaving them without light without any rule of life without Law and consequently without any thing whereby they may be judged at the last day But I know not how any man can deny the point before us to have been discovered by natural light unless he will correct S. Paul who affirms a Law written on our hearts by nature and that Conscience accuses or excuses according as Men have kept or broke it Rom. 1.14 15.